URUGUAY: Bums' School

Back in 1941, high-minded Uruguayans moved
to solve one of Montevideo's oldest problems by founding an Escuela de
Vagos e Inadaptos, or Bums' School. Their plan: to get mendicants,
degenerates and bums off the streets, and to teach a useful trade to
underprivileged men.

Chronic work-shys at once cleared out of the capital. Even when some
crept back, the average cop hardly broke a leg to nab a candidate. Most
Uruguayans had forgotten all about the scheme when last week
Montevideo's alert El Diario turned up the fact that their hobo
college, with a staff of 46, had shrunk to...